As murky details continue to spill over from the country’s premier probe agency, the actions of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which arrested its own deputy superintendent of police Divender Kumar on Monday for falsification of records in the Moin Qureshi corruption case, has prompted dismay at the top levels of the government.
Despite the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) expressing its strong disapproval to both incumbent director Alok Verma and special director Rakesh Asthana, they continue to dig in their heels.
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Sources revealed that Asthana, against whom the CBI has registered an FIR regarding corruption in the Qureshi case, is mulling legal options. Asthana may approach the court to get the charges against him quashed. Asthana is accused of accepting bribe from a businessman who was under probe in the Qureshi case. Verma, on his part, has refused to cool down on the issue and the CBI is going full steam ahead against Asthana in the case.
The fight is far from over as Verma's own role has come under the scanner of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), the supervisory body of the CBI, after Asthana's long list of complaints against him.
The waters became more muddied as sources in the CBI said Kumar was working alongside Asthana in the Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing some high profile cases. CBI sources said the role of other officers of the SIT, then supervising the Qureshi case, have also come under the scanner.
The CBI has accused Kumar of fabricating a statement quoting a witness, Satish Sana, in the Moin Qureshi case showing it was recorded on September 26 in Delhi when he was actually in Hyderabad on the given date. The CBI said Sana had joined investigation only on October 1. Sources in the agency said Kumar fabricated the statement allegedly at Asthana’s behest to try and implicate the CBI director.
The fabricated statement to the CBI quoting Sana said: ''During June 2018, I had discussed my case with one of my old friends C.M. Ramesh, a Rajya Sabha member, who assured that he will talk to the concerned director. Subsequently, when met with Shri Ramesh, he told that he had personally met Director regarding my case and examination by CBI. Ramesh also informed that I will not be called again in this case. From June onwards , I was not called by CBI. I was under the impression that the investigation against me was completed.”
The CBI has said that Kumar fabricated this statement as an afterthought to corroborate the ''baseless allegations made by CBI special director Asthana against director CBI Alok Verma to the CVC''.
The investigating officer fabricating a statement is a serious matter and has severe repercussions, said a former CBI official, explaining that if the role of the investigating officers in the CBI has come under a cloud, there is a possibility of other cases being probed also coming facing the same fate.
Government sources said even as the CBI director has sought Asthana's immediate repatriation to parent cadre, the fact that there are counter allegations against the incumbent director has also caught the attention of the PMO, which is likely to examine the tenability of continuance till the incumbent retires in February.